Thursday, October 31, 2013

Fossil Waffle Tarpit Trifle

Not a lot of cake in this post, other than a bit of waffle for dessert, but I think I'm still in scope here.

2013 Halloween Dinner Menu

Squash soup with poached pear ghosts

Slightly tippy ghosts

The pain of George

Fossil waffle tarpit trifle

The details

Squash soup

This is an all-day type of soup, but we've refined it over the years and it rewards the effort. The poached pears are a worthy addition even if when they're not ectopomorphized. The soup is roasted butternut squash pureed with apples, pears and a bunch of other stuff. The pear halves were poached in the hard cider that was later used in the soup.

Bread

Matt used this picture as a template. His verdict - "it is surprisingly hard to carve bread." My verdict - only Matt would be surprised.

Fossil waffle tarpit trifle

If there is not a German portmanteau word for this dish, someone needs to make one up. The trifle was inspired by a 6-year-old boy (shocking, I know) and this cake (scroll to near the bottom). The Tyrannosaurus rex and triceratop molds are by Fred and Friends, and are sold as ice cube trays. I filled them with waffle batter and baked at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until the tips of the tails started to brown. Because the molds are silicone, the batter didn't get fully cooked or crispy, but that was okay, because I was going to be drowning it in chocolate pudding. There is some very fine detail on the molds, yet they released quite well. A dash of cinnamon sugar helped to bring the bones into sharper relief.

The chocolate pudding is straight out of Joy of Cooking. I doubled the recipe and added a bit of extra chocolate (which required a bit of extra sugar) and a splash of Tia Maria. This went over very well.